Unit Rates and Thai House Plans To Estimate the Cost of Building a House in Thailand


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This post is based on my recent experience of truly going via the approach of acquiring estimates of the cost of creating a residence in Thailand including getting quotations from builders in Thailand and also using unit create rates (how considerably square meter) to build a retirement house in Thailand.

It will be valuable to anyone retiring in Thailand or preparing to retire to Thailand and develop a retirement home.

The Two Most important Two Ways To Estimate the Cost of Building a Residence in Thailand

There are basically two ways of pricing a developing project in Thailand.

1. Employing Unit Develop Rates To Estimate The Price Of Building A Residence

The 1st and simplest approach is by using Unit Develop Rates, i.e. how a lot per square meter it expenses to construct the residence in Baht/m2. There are a range of Unit Develop Rates for houses in Thailand and these differ according to the normal of the creating and the location in the country.

There are other factors that have an effect on the cost of constructing a house in Thailand and these are not normally allowed for in unit construct rates.

Just one example is that the cost of constructing depends greatly upon the particular builder chosen as quotations for the exact same property from various builders varies significantly.

Unit rates for use in estimating the cost of residence construction are readily accessible exactly where I live in the United Kingdom (UK). There are lots of web-sites that list these unit rates and also there are pricing books that give rate per square metre for a range of constructing varieties and sizes. This technique is commonly applied in Awesome Britain, and other Western countries to work out a budget price for creating a house.

Even so, in Thailand the circumstance is distinctive. I have not seen any 'official' Unit Construct Rates for Thailand but a variety of internet sites, notably those Forums catering for expats living in Thailand, give some rough figures from persons who have built their own retirement house in Thailand.

But that is all they are - a guide - and honestly barely worth employing even for budgeting purpose.

Two Examples from Thai Internet websites of Unit Rates for Residence Construct Cost in Thailand

From A1Real.com

Bangkok: "As of March 2006, buyers had to pay 81,975 baht/m2 in average to acquire a condominium unit in central area of Bangkok compared to 72,596 baht/m2 in the last twelve months".

From Thai-AirPark.com

Chiang Mai, Northern Thailand: "A house built to western regular will cost between 160 to 300 Euros / m2″ (At 45 Euros/Baht (Jan 2010) that works out at 7,200 to 13,500 Thai Baht per m2).

Notice how the unit rate for these two examples are so distinct.

Another way to get unit rates for Thailand is to method Thai builders and architects. Unit Construct Rates lately sent to me by 1 of Thailand's leading Bangkok-based design-and-build organisations are in the range of 15,000 to 20,000 Baht/m2.

The technique of application of the Unit Develop Rates is rather simple. You function out the total floor region of the proposed creating including all floors and multiply by the unit rate. There is no need to have to acquire or involve a builder for this strategy when you have decided on the the unit rate to use.

There are inherent inaccuracies in this approach because the mix of different types of usage will be several in distinct creating.

For example, working with my own proposed property in Pak Chong, Thailand, as an example, the house is a typical 'post' house and half of the ground floor is left 'open' to be created into usable rooms at a later date and the other half basically has blockwork walls to for a workshop.

Clearly the unit rate for these places is different and diverse from the 1st floor that contains kitchen, bedrooms and other living region.

Another example of different sort (and therefore expenses) of constructing usage making use of my Pak Chong house as an example is that on the 1st floor I have a exceptionally large (compared to the rest of the home) patio location and also a different semi-open area each of which would be a significantly lower expense to construct than the living accommodation areas.

The fact is that new develop houses in Thailand are incredibly generally of totally distinct style and layout to other houses. This is in comparison with the UK exactly where new houses are sometimes built in their hundreds all to the same style. Every person knows what you will get in a '3 bed semi-detached house' in England. In this circumstance unit rates can be safely applied.

So what location is applied in the expense calculation? Do you use the total region such as the ground floor open area and workshop and the initial floor patio and semi open region plus the living accommodation areas? Or do you use the unit rate just for the living accommodation and take a percentage of the unit rate for the lower price areas?

The problem is that I don't know the basis for the unit rate in the initial place. i.e. whether or not it was for a property comparable to mine with the open areas included, or whether or not it was for a property with a greater percentage of actual living area.

In conclusion the Unit Build Rates approach in Thailand can only be utilised to get a rather rough thought of the most likely cost and is honestly not accurate enough for establishing a budget.

2. Acquiring A Quotation From A Thai Builder For Building A House In Thailand

This strategy depends upon acquiring a builder to prepare a quotation based (usually) a set of drawings (also called home plans) for the property in question. (The house you want to construct to retire to in Thailand) Obviously, the extra accurate and detailed the home plans, the additional accurate the quotation can be.

Other documents might also be supplied to supplement the house plans and these contain a Scope Of Works describing the scope of the project (not usually produced in Thailand) and Schedules. The Schedules are ordinarily a schedule of finishes, schedule of doors, ironmongery etc.

There are 3 significant difficulties with this strategy.

1. Obtaining The House plans And Other Documents

I'm lucky in that I can use the Autocad Laptop Aided Drawings (CAD) software package and am familiar with developing design so I was able to create my own CAD drawings and schedules for my planned retirement residence in Thailand.

Also, I didn't start out with a blank sheet of paper, instead I downloaded some existing Thai house plans from the Thai Government web site (Search for 'download Thai Government Home Plans') and selected one to use as a beginning point for my own Thai house style.

If you don't fancy this do-it-oneself method you will have to find someone to make the house plans for you. Whilst this is uncomplicated in (if somewhat high-priced) in the UK, if you attempt to uncover a Thai Architect to do this for you then you might possibly have troubles.

Firstly acquiring an Architect in Thailand is not effortless despite the fact that I did locate an architectural and construction firm in Bangkok and I subsequently appointed then to make the construction drawings for my own residence - but that is another story.

Secondly, how do you clarify to an Architect what you want? This is especially tricky (impossible?) if you do not already have your own preliminary drawings as I did and if you aren't in a position to sit down in the identical room as the architect and pour more than suggestions and concepts.

Performing that by e-mail from starting from scratch from outside of Thailand is subsequent to impossible.

two. Translation Of The Documents Into The Thai Language

This is not so hard if you are prepared to pay for a translator in Thailand.

A translator can readily translate the schedules but adding Thai to CAD drawings in not hassle-free unless the translator also knows how to use the CAD software! My own house plans and schedules are in English only and I was able to get a quotation from a Thai builder.

You may possibly attempt English only and just get the translator to translate the technical phrases that the builder doesn't comprehend. Again, substantially less difficult to do if you are in Thailand alongside the translator and builder.

3. Acquiring A Builder In Thailand

This can be one of the most troublesome tasks you have to do.

My wife has contacted at least six builders from inside Thailand and only 1 has produced a price. That price was based on the house plans and schedules that I produced but was about double what we expected, at two.1 million Baht, which works out at 16,000 Baht/m2.

The answer we get from most of the builders is that they are too busy to work on supplying a cost for a little residence construct job. It appears that numerous builders are engaged on huge projects in the coastal resorts of Thailand (e.g. Phucket) and that our tiny little project in Pakchong is not worth their when.

The technique I utilized to acquire builders consisted of knocking on doors "You have a nice house, can you tell me who the builder was?" I uncover it effortless to method many people and 1 day I was chatting with the Security Guard at our hotel, "The Mansion" at 8/8 Soi Tedsaban 8, Mittrapap Rd., Pakchong, Thailand, and he announced that he could get a cost from at least two builders.

We took him up on that provide but never ever received the quotations. 1 was too busy and the other wanted 5,000 Baht up front just before preparing a quotation in case we did not pick him as our builder! By the way, the Security Guard said that his commission was 10 percent!

In this short discussion on how I obtained spending budget estimates for a retirement house in Thailand I have covered the two major approaches, using and home plans, to secure a spending budget cost and the benefits and disadvantages of each method. Also I have explained the 3 difficulties you will face when attempting to get a builder in Thailand to give you an estimate for developing your retirement residence in Thailand.


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